The plant sale doubled the Green Thumb Committee/Rainbow Garden’s resources for the 2012-2013 year. These funds are used to buy project materials, offer mini-grants for teachers/parents and anything else the garden needs for maintenance.
Thank you to Green Thumb volunteer parents who set up and hosted the sale and to Hazel families, staff and neighbors for supporting our program.
Help the Green Thumb Committee raise funds for Hazel’s program!
The on-site sale will have the most popular requested plants: flats of flowering annuals (impatiens, marigolds and petunias), vegetable flats (cherry and beefsteak tomatoes, green and red peppers), large combo geranium patio pots, 4″pots of herbs, 4.5″ potted plants (geraniums), and 10″ hanging baskets (impatiens, trailing petunias, ivy geraniums, upright geraniums, and combos of each in one basket).
All plants come directly from grower. Our prices are comparable to local grocery and garden center prices. Proceeds will help us continue to maintain the Rainbow Garden and provide mini project grants to our classes.
The Plant Sale will be held in the Rainbow Garden, 45 Hazel Avenue, West Orange, NJ. If there is inclement weather, the sale will be moved indoors.
Thursday, May 4th from 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Friday, May 6th from 8:00 – 9:00 AM
Friday May 6th from 3:00 – 5:00 PM
Pre-sale orders will be ready for pick-up.
Saturday, April 21, was our Spring Work Day. About twenty families came out to help weed, prune, spread mulch, turn over the raised beds and clean up the garden of debris.
Thank you to everyone: Hazel students, neighbors, and parents. Please check out our Flickr slideshow of the day.
The night before the event, I received exciting news…
The Green Thumb Committee has been awarded a $2,000.00 grant from the Whole Kids Foundation (Whole Foods/Food Corps) to fund our school garden program. The $2,000.00 will be used to purchase:
Saturday: A slight chance of showers before 9am, then a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1pm. Patchy fog before 9am. Otherwise, partly sunny, with a high near 76. South wind between 3 and 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. (http://www.weather.gov)
Work Day is on even if there is light morning rain. Come with tools for basic clean up and spreading mulch just a bit later, between the predicted showers in the afternoon.
Check back for an update, tomorrow morning!
Saturday April 21 (9:30AM – 2:30PM) Rain Date: April 22 (10AM)
All members of the school community are welcome. Come for as little as an hour or more if you have the time. Morning refreshments and pizza lunch will be provided. Bring your work gloves and label your garden tools. All children must be accompanied by an adult.
To do list:
If you would like to volunteer for any of the specific jobs listed above please email Tracey Clarke.
This weekend — Saturday, March 31st @ 9:30 AM (weather permitting) work will begin on the Rainbow Garden’s 3′ x 3′ brick path squares. These brick squares will guide visitors from the left side of the school’s Main Entrance towards the outdoor classroom. The squares can also be used as mini learning platforms for students to sit and work on while in the garden. Hazel parent and Green Thumb Committee volunteer, Brian Coleman, will be leading the project. If you are interested in lending a helping hand please send us an email and let us know. Stay tuned for updates the weekend weather. Sunday 4/1 will be the rain date for the start of this project.
The daffodils bloomed at Hazel this week, signaling the planning phase for the new Woolly School Garden. The Green Thumb Committee (GTC) will pilot collaborative learning projects with four classes this spring: Mr. Roberts’ Kindergarten, Ms. Torre’s First Grade, Mrs. Seiberts Third Grade and Ms. Nigro’s Fourth Grade, by providing scheduling, garden related curriculum, and hands-on outdoor learning support.
First, the logistics of the GTC’s Spring Clean-up plans have to be ironed out, which consists of a finding that perfect weekend (and rain date option) and creating a new “To Do List.” The date(s) will be announced any day, so check back soon!
Then, twenty (20) cubic feet (ten – 2 cubic foot bags) of healthy organic soil needs to be picked up at Alpine Nursery in Belleville, NJ, prior to the start of our project. Lastly, we will set an April date with our pilot teachers to begin the project. (Spring Recess is always a welcomed break, but also a tricky element to work around for spring garden planning).
To begin, our pilot classes will participate in 3 steps to create and learn from the Woolly School Garden.
Step 1 is set-up (Woolly Garden Jobs) — hang pockets, set up our water source, fill the pockets with soil, creating plant markers from recycled materials, plant seeds, and prepare the compost tea.
Step 2 is garden care (possible extension lessons) — research and participate in activites to explain basic garden care and maintenance, such as bugs, birds and plant disease, what grows where? (Zone 7), getting to know all the edible plants in our Woolly School Garden.
Step 3 is curriculum (standards based, grade appropriate lessons and more) — i.e. Tops + Bottoms Salad Garden, Plant Part Salad Garden, Endangered Species Salad Garden, Agriculture Salad Garden, decomposition, math for the garden, watching the weather, hosting a salad harvest party).
[Note: To help identify these steps, I referred to the Woolly School Garden gardening manual that came with our materials from gardennerd.com. I also created a diagram to explain the steps, offer teachers flexible options. Here is a pdf copy of our WOOLLY PLANS.]
I look forward to sharing our story over the next 13 weeks. If you would like to lend a hand, please contact me!
On Wednesday, January 18th, 2012, our school held a Health and Wellness meeting. We (Denise and I) hosted a seed starting activity table and introduced parents to our, soon to be installed, Woolly School Garden pockets and curriculum binder.
At the activity table, we made recycled plant cups by forming strips of newspaper over a wooden cup mold. Visitors were able to add seed starting soil and mesclun green seeds to their cups. These are easy to start, cold-season vegetable seeds. We used small plastic baggies for a mini-green house effect. The baggies also made it easy to transport home and to later contain the soil and water. (This was also just the activity to remind me to flip through the stacks of seed catalogs on my kitchen counter!)
This weekend, Saturday, November 19th, members from the local community are volunteering their time to help with general fall clean-up in the Rainbow Garden.
The Green Thumb Committee welcomes all who can attend to rake, pick up sticks, and trash. A Green Thumb Committee member will supervise the clean-up, beginning at 10:30 AM.
Date: Friday, 10/27 (tomorrow!)
Time: 8:45 until… I will be there at 9:30.
Why: The weather forecast is sunny and 50 degrees.
Hope to see another green thumb there!
